I’m Eve Angelotta, head chef at Miracolo, the Italian Restaurant on Market Square at the center of Quaker Hills, Pennsylvania. We’re forty minutes north of Philly. My nonna, Maria Pia Angelotta, who actually owns the restaurant, will try to tell you Miracolo’s the only restaurant in town. “Technically, cara mia,” she says slyly, “the others call themselves eateries, creperies, taverns, and cafes.” Then she thumps her chests grandly. “We,” she insists, “are the only restaurant.” If you want to know how I spend a typical day, you just got a dose: mostly I spent it trying to make sense of my nonna. And keep her out of my kitchen.
In that second account of my Adventures in Cooking, Basil Instinct, you will discover what happens when my nonna is allowed unleashed back in the kitchen at Miracolo. My cooking cousins, Landon and Choo Choo, and I had to let her do it. She was invited to join Belfiere, a 200-year-old, secret, all-female cooking society, and she had to prepare a meal for the members. Violent weather systems make less of a mess. So, on that day at least, I was busy keeping an eye on the breakables. Sadly, I overlooked a member of the restaurant staff, who wound up murdered. On the very day of Nonna’s special dinner. It was all I could do to keep grandmothers and corpses comfortably far apart.
When investigating murder isn’t cutting into my work day at Miracolo, what do I do? Sometimes it seems like I all I do is sleep, prep for the evening’s menu and then cook it, with the help of my beloved cousin Landon. He and I will occasionally “dish,” and I don’t mean delicious Italian fare, over our favorite Scotch across the street at Jolly’s Pub. When the work day is over and the restaurant has closed. At those times, Landon and I cover our respective dating lives – this takes surprisingly long considering how non-existent they are – and the ever popular topic, What To Do About Nonna.
Aside from time with Landon, both in and out of the Miracolo kitchen, I try to find reasons to hire my lawyer, the handsome Joe Beck, to attend to my legal needs (without getting into too much trouble, you understand), and I try to figure out ways to get rid of my annoying cousin Kayla Angelotta, the organic farmer who provides Miracolo with a lot of its produce. Mind you, I don’t mean “get rid of” Kayla in a permanent way – although that would certainly increase my face-to-face time with Joe Beck – just in a temporary, creative way from one week to the next. Some way that doesn’t affect the delivery of our produce. Because I’m pretty sure it’s the fact that I can’t make sense of how she farms in hot pink shorts overalls that makes me wish I had learned Nonna’s Evil Eye – and not at all the fact that she brags about her fling with Joe Beck.
Choo Choo tells my I could teach another Basic Cooking Skills class at the local career center as a way of staying out of Kayla’s orbit. “She should stay out of mine!” I yell as I hurl my cheese grater at him. To appreciate that, you’ll have to see what he’s talking about in Basil Instinct. And right now, well, it’s back to work for me. We open at five, and I’ve got a veal alla milanese on the menu this evening. Maybe you’ll stop by?
You can read more about Eve in Basil Instinct, the second book in the “Miracolo” mystery series, published by Pocket Books. The first book in the series is You Cannoli Die Once. Books are available at retail and online booksellers.
GIVEAWAY
Comment on this post by 6 p.m. EST on July 7, and you will be entered for a chance to win a copy of BASIL INSTINCT. One winner will be chosen at random. Unless specified, U.S. entries only.
Meet the author
SHELLEY COSTA grew up in Garwood, NJ, which is probably how she came to love and understand small towns enough to write about them. When she graduated from Rutgers, she took a job in book publishing in midtown Manhattan and did the Mary Tyler Moore thing, tossing her hat in the air. She moved to Cleveland for graduate school in English, where she met her husband, raised her family, wrote and published short stories, and took a job teaching creative writing part-time at the Cleveland Institute of Art. Her last big adventure was two years ago when she and her family did a six-day canoe trip in the Canadian wilderness. Her contribution to this out-of-her-comfort-zone trip was to pack fifteen rolls of toilet paper.
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Sounds like a good read.
Loved the first one. Looking foreword to reading the new one.
I’ve got to start the first one soon.
i love Italian food…..is that a good enough reason to read this series?!?!? LOL!!!!
Sounds great , would love to win this
Hello Dru, I read You Cannoli Die Once, enjoyed it so much. Since I grew up and still live in this area portrayed in this series, I have a keen interest. Thanks for all of your reviews and views, Maureen
I loved the first book and would love to read this one too! This is a great series!
I haven’t read this series yet , adding it to my wish list !
Looks like food and murder are a couple. Who would have thought that food leads to murder?
Love this title!
interesting mystery, I like the food theme, thank you for the chance
Italian cooking, fighting family members, a couple of bodies thrown in for good measure, what’s not love. This sounds like a great read and I look forward to adding it to my TBR stack.
This is a great book. I really enjoyed it. Unfortunately, all the food references made me head to the kitchen for food!
As a former professional cook, I have a soft spot for this type of cozy…thanx for writing it, and thanx for the giveaway
Love the titles in this series. Loved the first and eager to read the second one.
I love this story line.. it reminds me of the neighborhood in Brooklyn where I grew up (no NOT Bensenhurst) and all my crazy neighbors. I even had an Uncle Vito who ran for Mayor of NY in the 70’s.
Toss my hat in the contest ring Dru.. I want it!
Love the cooking cozies. The food always sounds so interesting. I don’t cook much any more since I’m a widow but I still like to plan meals in my head.
I dont know how I missed this series. Will have to read it now thanks to this great “In the Kitchen” on your site. Thanks Dru for getting all the good books out there in our sight so we dont miss them.
My kind of series. Can’t wait to read this one. Love the premise.
I love Italian food and I also hate to run out of toilet paper, so the author and I have a lot in common. This sounds like a fun book!
This sounds so good, in more ways than one. I have got to get started on the first one. Thanks for the chance to win.
This sounds wonderful. I gained weight just considering the veal dish.
Italian food is terrific….I have a good recipe for sauce.
Well for heaven’s sake Dru Ann…don’t we all know that anything Italian equals good food! My DH loves Mexican foods…tacos for breakfast for crying out loud! But me? Give me some pasta any day and I’ll be happy. Thanks for the great review and the give-a-way.
Sandy in So. Cali
I love Italian food—and cozy mysteries. I must read this book.
suefarrell.farrell@gmail.com
Shelley’s Restaurant Mysteries series got added to my to-read list when I saw the recipe for Gorgonzola, Spiced Walnuts and
port Wine Syrup that she submitted to “Cozy Food.”
Looks like a great series.
Loved You Cannoli Die Once! Bothe reading it & chuckle-inducing title. I look forward to reading Basil Instinct. Thank you for the post and giveaway. Happy 4th!
Looks like an interesting series.
Happy 4th
kaye.killgore@comcast.net
You had me at “Italian restaurant,” although I’m only half Italian. Please put me in the draw.
Sounds like a book I would enjoy. Thanks for the chance to win it.
Sounds like a good read—thanks for the opportunity to win a copy!
I was so surprised to find that I had missed out on book 1 in this series, but food related books are one of my favorites so I know that I just have to get the first and this one ordered soon. Thank you for the opportunity to win this, but mostly for enlightening me, Dru.
xo
Cynthia
contest is closed